Inside of the concentration camps established during the Second World War, there were many
different women who worked as guards for the SS.
Some of the most evil women associated with horrific crimes and treatment inside of the
camps were sentenced to death and were executed in war crimes trials, and the courts would
hear of the terrible acts that women such as Irma Geese committed.
But at the end of the war, one of the most despicable camps which was liberated was Bergen-Belsen,
and the British liberators discovered a site in meltdown.
There were around 13,000 corpses lying unburied around the site, and it was at Belsen that
Anne Frank and over 70,000 people succumbed to the conditions.
The guards who remained here at the end of the world were arrested, and what shocked
many was the fact many young women had been responsible for the evil what occurred inside.
But what is there story of the princesses of bergen Belsen?
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In August 1933, a women camp was added to Bergen-Belsen, and this was a specific part
of the site which held thousands of young women and girls.
Many were sent to other sites around Germany, and the first women who were sent here were
Polish.
As the end of the Second World War came about, thousands of more inmates were sent to Bergen-Belsen
from other sites to prevent them falling into the hands of the allies.
Eastern concentration camps were evacuated before the advancing Red Army, and at Bergen-Belsen
the numbers of inmates went up to around 60,000 by April 1945, which was roughly 6 times the
capacity.
Because of this, there were disease epidemics sweeping through the site which were killing
many of the prisoners, and also there was a significant amount of starvation.
The British liberators when they arrived at Belsen were greeted by the horrific sight,
and one of the British reporters described the scenes.
He said, ‘Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people.
You could not see which was which...
The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly
procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable
to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them ... Babies
had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live ... A mother, driven mad, screamed
at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms,
then ran off, crying terribly.
He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days.
This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.’
To help clean up the camp, the British needed more people to help to deal with the dead
bodies, and they put to work the captured SS guards who had remained at the sight.
It was believed they had stayed there to ensure that law and order was maintained with the
inmates, however within the guards were a number of women who had served at the camp
as guards.
Many of these women were known for their evil treatment, and as mentioned many were sentenced
to death after the war, but what is there story?
Many of the women who were arrested had worked at other sites such as Ravensbruck and Auschwitz,
but the women who were placed on trial for their work at Belsen only represented a small
percentage of those women who worked at concentration camps.
One of the most infamous guards of Bergen-Belsen was Irma Grese, who became known as the Beautiful
Beast, or the Hyena of Auschwitz.
She was just 22 when she was executed at the gallows in Hamelin Prison for her crimes,
and she was considered a young sadistic woman who inflicted suffering, death and misery
onto the inmates.
She found herself at Bergen-Belsen after she accompanied a prisoner evacuation to Bergen-Belsen
from Ravensbruck, but she was known for being a woman who would beat and kill with her bare
hands, and she was seen striking many women with her whip, sometimes to death.
She also took part in the selections for the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and she was also
known to have abused many inmates.
She patrolled with a dog and was known for encouraging this to attack inmates, and Irma
Grese was responsible for the deaths of dozens.
She went to her death an ardent Nazi despite being just 22, and it was said of her execution,
‘At 9.34 a.m. she walked into the execution chamber, gazed for a moment at the officials
standing round it, then walked on to the centre of the trap, where I had made a chalk mark.
She stood on this mark very firmly, and as I placed the white cap over her head she said
in her languid voice, 'Schnell'.
The drop crashed down, and the doctor followed me into the pit and pronounced her dead.
After twenty minutes the body was taken down and placed in a coffin ready for burial.
Another brutal and barbaric female guard who found herself transferred to Bergen-Belsen
was Elizabeth Volkenrath who was four years older that Irma Grese, just being 26 when
she was executed.
Despite her age she was rather senior, and she became an Oberaufseherin at Auschwitz,
being repsonsible for all camp selections of female prisoners.
This meant that she was the one who signed off and decided on sending thousands of women
and children to their deaths in the gas chambers.
She was also known for instilling fear into inmates, and she was transferred to Belsen
in February 1945.
She was also executed alongside Irma Grese at Hamelin Prison.
Johanna Bormann became known as the Woman with the dogs, and she was a woman who took
up a career in the SS to make more money to begin with.
She served at a number of sites including Ravensbruck, before she was selected for guard
duty at Auschwitz.
She was known as the weasel, and she would encourage her dog to attack and kill and main
inmates at times.
She was an ardent nazi, and was one of those captured at Belsen, and she was forced to
make help with the cleanup of the site.
She was executed due to her participation in the selections and also the fact she had
committed horrors at Belsen and Auschwitz, and Albert Pierrepoint said before her execution,
‘"She limped down the corridor looking old and haggard.
She was 52, standing only a little over five feet.
She was trembling as she was put on the scale.
In German she said: 'I have my feelings.’
One women who served at the start of the war in Ravensbruck was Herta Ehlert, and she was
described by one inmate as, ‘immensely obese, sly, vicious in character, and an absolute
master in using the whip.
She was the overseer in charge of the kitchen.
Through a small window, she would spy on the Jewish women while they were at work peeling
potatoes or onions, washing dishes, and doing other chores necessary in the kitchen.
Once, Ehlert even ordered the women who were at work to undress completely.
After they had stripped, Ehlert searched each one extremely thoroughly, looking, no doubt,
for rings, money, wrist watches, and other valuables.
She remained at her job until the final liquidation of the Plaszów camp.
She, too, was on the death march when the time came for us to retreat along with Germans.’
She had worked at Auschwitz, and was discovered at Belsen when it was liberated.
She was asked if she had committed theft, had committed murder and witnessed many horrific
beatings, and she denied everything.
However proving her involvement in selections and murderous antics became tricky, and became
of this she was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Ilse Forster also worked at Belsen, and she had been drafted into the SS in August 1944
to work inside the camps.
She had worked at Guben, before she accompanied the inmates on a death march.
She was accused of beating and striking inmates, especially those who wanted to get more food,
as they were starving.
One witness claimed she beat a girl to death, and that she beat a Russian girl to death.
She admitted that she had struck this girl but claimed she had not killed her.
As she had not worked at Auschwitz, she escaped the death penalty being imprisoned for 10
years.
One of the most recognisable female guards was Herta Bothe, who was known as the Sadist
of Stutthof where she worked, beating inmates on a daily basis.
She then was sent to Belsen, and she was 6 feet 3 in height standing out from the other
female guards.
She was forced to help clear up Belsen after the war, and she protested as she was fearful
of contracting typhus from the corpses.
She was portrayed at trial as a ruthless overseer, and she admitted hitting and beating inmates
with her hands, and she said she never used a stick or weapon to do this, and that she
never killed someone.
However there were witnesses who testified that she beat a Hungarian inmate named Eva
to death with a wooden block, and another said he saw Herta Bothe shoot two inmates
for no reason.
But she was imprisoned and later released, however she never recanted her actions.
She said in an interview the year before she died that, ‘Did I make a mistake?
No.
The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had to go to it, otherwise I would
have been put into it myself.
That was my mistake.’
Another woman placed on trial was Irene Haschke, who was as Ilse Forster was called into service
in 1944.
She was sent for training before she was transferred and sent to Bergen-Belsen.
She admitted that she had hit prisoners saying, ‘ I hit them with my hand and sometimes
I used a stick which I got from the guard.
It was an ordinary wooden stick, about eighteen inches long and three-quarters of an inch
in diameter.
It was only necessary to beat prisoners when they were stealing, and I only hit them once
or twice.’
There were allegations that she threw one woman into a pond where she drowned, after
she was seen taking water out of the cistern to drink.
She was also sentenced to 10 years imprisonement.
Gertrud Sauer was a woman who also admitted to beating prisoners with her bare hands,
and she worked in the kitchens and would hit prisoners who she suspected were stealing.
She was accused of using a riding whip to administer the brutal beatings, and she even
admitted that at Belsen the guards were starving inmates.
Anna Hempel accompanied prisoners to Belsen also from Guben, and she said she worked two
days in the bath house and then also in the kitchens.
She tried to make out that she was a caring guard who tried to appeal for more food for
the inmates, however she was noticed beating prisoners barbarically.
One woman said she saw a sick man being beaten heavily by Hempel, and that the man collapsed.
She also admitted to beating inmates, and she also caught typhus at Belsen.
She was also sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.
Gertrud Feist worked for the SS at Gross Rosen before she was also sent to Belsen, she claimed
that her job at the site was to stand at the door to see that the working women did their
job properly, and didn’t leave the room.
She was in effect a bouncer on the door of the bath house, but she was also found guilty
of mistreating inmates, but received a more lenient 5 years in prison.
Frieda Walter was accused of hitting prisoners with a spade and also wooden tools, and she
did admit to hitting a number of the prisoners who once again stole food, but she claimed
she slapped their face.
She was portrayed by witnesses as a woman who would administer beatings every day, who
took advantage of the fact prisoners would not strike her back.
She was sentenced to 3 years inprisonment.
The most lenient prison sentence given to the female guards of Belsen came when Hilde
Lisiewicz was sentenced to just one year for her work at the camp.
She claimed she did not see the piles of dead bodies, and that she worked at a different
part of the camp, and she dismissed what happened there.
She had worked at the site in the kitchens for around 3 months, but had served as an
SS guard in other sites for 5 years.
People were still trying to push a harsher prosecution on her into the last decades.
All of these women were sentenced during the first Belsen trials.
There were other women who were later imprisoned, including Helena Copper, Hilde Lohbauer and
Johanne Roth who were Kapos who were actually inmates that were tasked with working and
helping the SS in the running of the camp.
During the Second Belsen trials, more women including Gertrud Heise, Martha Linke and
Anneliese Kohlmann were brought to the court room, and these were given varying prison
sentences for their actions.
However the most serious sentences of death that were imposed against the women who were
found working at Bergen-Belsen seem to be those women who also saw service at Auschwitz
and were involved in the selections.
It is possibly this that was the over-riding factor that caused these women suchas Irma
Grese and Elisabeth Volkenrath to be sent to their deaths, despite the fact other guards
such as Herta Bothe were considered brutes, but it was difficult to prove if these women
were involved in killing.
But these women were the Nazi princesses of Bergen-Belsen, who’s actions inflicted so
much suffering and death.
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